Meanwhile, Robin took a first-aid course, so that he might help people in distress on the hills, qualified as a mountain leader and, in the spring of 1998, went on an expedition to the Himalayas.

Janzen's critiques of most of my present chapters, with his soaring imagination, unencumbered passion for theologizing, and relentless wrestling, often revealed and challenged my flat-footed muddlings […]

In the early days of research, the images were often read very literally, and this was certainly taken to extremes – the classic example, of course, is the ‘signs’ in Ice Age cave art which the first researchers assumed to represent actual objects, and gave them names accordingly – for example, ‘claviforms’ were thought to be clubs, ‘tectiforms’ were thought to be roofs or huts, and so forth ….

Here, besuited men with earpieces ushered us into a black Mercedes with tinted windows. On arrival at our destination, more besuited men with earpieces searched our bags, and made photocopies of my press card.